G and J

Fortunately our house is small enough so the runs are short enough so I don’t need (I hope) a hot return thingy. Fingers crossed.

I saw an ad for them. Looked fab, PV one side, almost matching standing seem roof the other. However, I looked at the gloss of the marketing, thought fondly of our budget and the fact that we want slates, and I didn’t save the details. I categorised it as something for someone else’s grand design.

Hmmmm. I’m thinking dedicated 10mm hep2o pipe to each hot basin tap from cylinder manifold to deliver quick hot water. After that just one 15mm hot and cold to each bathroom. Given the above this sounds like overkill.

So, the panels I fit are part paid for by the saving in slates. I fit optimisers that are accessible from inside the loft and I accept that some panels will die in the next 25years so the solar output will diminish, but not terribly, and the rest can keep going thanks to the optimisers. I can live with that. I still get lots of kWh.

Until this thread we were pretty sold on ergovents, a mix of linear and square ones depending on which room. It does t take much to worry me lol

Many BCOs won’t sign off a woodburner install however perfect, and insist on. Hetas person signing it off. So the perfect arrangement for recirculating smoke down a flue. Hmmmm. Maybe it is worth running some duct to the outside, perhaps even up to ceiling level then outside somehow. Are you sure you can’t pick just one woodburner as your emergency hear source?

Copy that. I’m going for nicely airtight anyway but I can see the need for even greater vigilance around aluminium door and window frames.

OK. Maybe there is another way to look at this. Insulative block under cill to limit bridging has got to be a no brainier. Insulative upstand round perimeter of screed similarly a no brainier. But what if I let the screed touch the aluminium cill? Yes it will cause more heat loss than needed. But the screed will warm the cill, reducing or eliminating condensation on the cill. I think condensation would be harder to live with than a tiny increase in heating load.

That was one of the aspects I was worrying about. It feels like this requirement is conflicting with the requirement to avoid cold, condensey aluminium cills/frames. Removing some of the thermalite blocks thickness, maybe even to the extent of the PIR up stand being partly under the cill, sounds like a good plan.

Good thought. Our front door is our part M access door so there I could use thermalite blocks instead of plinth bricks. we have a rear door and patio doors where the plinth bricks will be visible as both have a step down immediately outside

That's exactly where I want to get to. Thank you. Hmmmmm, do I need something special above my top plinth brick?

I think broadly anything that’s ’supply and fit’ can be zero rated. Anything ‘supply only’ cannot and at best has to be reclaimed. As for plant hire, I think that can be zero rated if you hire the operator with it, not otherwise.

We are about to demolish a 1920s bungalow, and the roof timbers look fantastic. (Now do I subconsciously do a visual wood grading without realising, I wonder?). My man cave at the bottom of the garden will be built from these and other timbers from the bungalow, but that will be outside our warranty and is not subject to building regs, partly as it will be build after we’ve completed. I took the view that the bunfight that would ensue if anything went awry would be bad enough with insurers and all, without adding in a get out of jail card for them of me reusing. What we can’t use ourselves we are gumtreeing. Not quite as satisfying but still reuse. Perhaps we should start a club, Self Builders Against Landfill!

An old software development maxim might apply here: “The first 90% of the budget pays for 90% of the project. The second 90% of the budget pays for the rest.” 😕

Crumbs I am learning tons on this site. So, @JohnMo, i think this is the arrangement you have: And I’m assuming you don’t have condensation on your door cill , which is where i want to be (hence the interrogation - sorry!). We will have facing bricks instead of the outer of the two thermalite blocks. Does this mean I’ll need to do something else to prevent condensation?

If I thought I could get a builder to do our whole project for £2k/m2 to completion I’d be tempted to make myself redundant and save me some stress. I agree with @Alan Ambrose, it would help to be much more specific.

Hmmmm. I’m hoping to get initial costings from an MCS plumber chap soon. We shall see.

Good grief. Thank goodness we aren’t in a conservation area. I’ve removed many laurel stems well over 3” in diameter and many over 12’ high. Laurel is generally thought of as disposable I believe, as it is such a thug, but better to be squeaky clean methinks.

Dangerous thing, logic. As is assuming that regulations are sensible. I think you’ll find each stove in each room is viewed individually. As you have said stove already why not hitch it up and see? You can leave the air supply pipe open at the back. My guess is that you are likely to discover that it works just fine. Mid century house with trickle vents I would guess won’t be that airtight. Alternatively, as a precursor to trying it you could test the draft on your flue. Shut everything, everywhere, including all other flues/chimneys, ideally on a cold and windless day, and see what a smoke match does in the fireplace below the open flue. The warmth of your house should generate a gentle draft (hence cold and windless) which mimics least draft conditions. Betcha the smoke slips straight up that flue. However…. having two flues connected does give the opportunity for a strong draft in one sucking smoke down the other (as I’ve experienced). If you’ve bought fires that shut off the airflow well then it should be ok using one then shutting the other off. I wouldn’t, however assume without investigation that you can use both at once. What stage are you at re flue liners?

Big time. We are committed to be good to the planet as best we perceive it with modicum of balance. But add £7.5k to our current budget and that would hurt. And whether or not that is the reality that is how I think it's perceived.

Please can they only stop after I’ve had my ASHP grant. Pretty please.

Ta. if I understand your wall build up you don’t have a cavity. So I guess the sub DPC wall is simply thinner across the doorways. What happens with a cavity wall? In some ways I don’t think it should be any different, but I don’t trust my intuition here.

So to check my understanding, is this what you are describing?

May I suggest you assume that they are reasonable, and also allow for the fact that day in day out they are used to dealing with unfriendly, p’d off developers who are intent on getting one over on them. If you read the posts on here you will conclude that East Suffolk planners are all anti-christs. Our experience is that they’ve been lovely, and very balanced in their views, which we in turn have respected. This stuff is often far more adversarial than it really need be. It may not work, but it would be good if it did.

Of course after the event one thinks of the things one should have put. To make self building easier: allow suppliers to zero rate vat for supplies, not just when it’s supply and fit. That would help our cash flow a lot and I suspect we aren’t the only ones.